rec.autos.simulators

  just re-installed, and repatched nascar heat.  With the new 1.5 patch the
installation of mods for the game are now easy.  I just did the following ;
loaded the stock nascar vehicles
then did the irl cars
then tried the craftsment truck series ...new menu screens, cool!
back to nascar.
  All that without running batch files or file copiers or renaming
anything...totally seemless and well done.  Good job to the patch
programmers for recognizing the opportunity to add mods to the program and
also to the many guys who worked on the patches that created the irl and
truck add-ons.  looking forward to the CART final patch and the le mans
final as well.  Keep up the good work lads.
dave henrie

That's weird, I just did pretty much the same thing, although I haven't
downloaded the trucks yet.

I have had a brief look at IRL Heat and it looks impressive.  There were two
things I wasn't sure about.  Firstly, should there be any numbers on the
dask or is the moving bar all there is.  Second,  in the menus, should you
be able to see pictures of the cars.  In my installtion you can't.

Cheers

Phil Lee

Legends Central Admin
http://www.legendscentral.com

  with the irl cars, the moving rpm indicator is all you get.  And there are
no pictures of the drivers.
however, i was suprised by the CTS patch..you can tell why this one was the
first mod started and the last to be shown publically, they have menu
screens & all the driver pictures.
  This is new since even the carsets that were available for heat, didn't
include driver pictures...  Really good work
dave henrie

Well things were going OK until I pitted for the first time when things go
completely crazy.

The pit crew jack up the right side of the car and things get a little
shaky. The jack man then releases the jack and the car flies about 50 feet
into the air, spinning about its longitudinal axis and, more often than not,
lands upside down.

So far I have tried Richmond and Texas. It happens at both tracks.

Has anyone else seen this happen?

Cheers

Phil Lee

Legends Central Admin
http://www.legendscentral.com

Thanks, unfortunately I'm at a brick wall right now with the AI :( I can't
get different classes of cars to brake and corner at different speeds. I can
get them to go faster down the straight or have more grip, but they still al
brake at the same point and maintain the same cornering speed, so if your
driving say a GT car, it looks good because the order is LMP, GTS, GT and
you had a tough fight in GT, but then, if you drive LMP, you'll simply blow
everyone away, and then if you use LMP AI, then all the others go way too
fast for their class. I might have to release seperate mods for the
different classes (like SCGT) or you'd have to install which ever AI you
want according to the class you want to drive. I'd like some feedback to
what you want if I can't make each class realistic.

Oh, BTW, the next version will have the Saleen S7 and Big Ben is working on
painting my dashes to make them racier instead of street stock, and prettier
:)

Thanks,
Alex

Oh, and BTW, you can still use Le Mans Heat with the 1.5 mod patch. All you
have to do is extract the contents of the patch to say "lemans" in the
NASCAR Heat directory (have to create it) and then run it with
the -mod:lemans tag and you can play it like that.

Thanks,
Alex

I have a fix for the "flips in the pits" problem, but I need some
people to do some testing.  I've done some on-the-fly testing (60+
laps at Texas followed by a pit stop, etc.), but there are only so
many hours in a day, so I could use some help with testing under
different conditions and at other tracks.  Basically, I need some
people to shake things out a bit and to give me some feedback on how
the new physics feel.

If you'd be interested in downloading the patch, it's a 1.2 MB
download with its own installer.  You can grab it here if you'd like:

http://irlheat.bhmotorsports.com/IRLHeatPhysicsMod.zip

If you download it, let me know what tracks you test at, if the
flipping in the pits stops, and also, since the physics have been
modified a bit, let me know what you think of the handling and such.

If I get enough favorable feedback from the people who are kind enough
to help with the testing, I will post this fix on the IRL Heat site as
an "official" patch.

Thanks in advance!

-- JB

P.S. We'll be working on the menus and such for the IRL Heat mods next
-- we Indy guys hate to be passed up by a bunch of good ol' boys in
trucks!

;-P

  it's midnite so i'm not gonna run a full test...but with full tanks the
new physics felt VERY heavy.  The pack left me for about half a lap as it
took some time to get upto speed.  no problem with starting in low gear
now...that is a plus.  The pitstop with mostly full tanks went well, not
even a shudder as the car was jacked up.  This was at las vegas btw...
dave henrie

Phil, from what I gather that is a glitch in the IRL mod. Haven't heard an
explanation, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I think it has something
to do with the 3d model of the IRL car itself. The IRL mod doesn't appear
any different in the menu images, and no there are no cars shown in driver
selection. Hope this helps, and if you get a chance download the CTS mod, it
may take some time, but it is well worth it.

--
**************************************************
Dale Earnhardt Forever in our hearts.
-Ray "DElvr" Lawler
webmaster and co-founder of
http://www.3stoutsracing.com /
http://www.3stoutsracing.com/team3stouts

The physics mod will necessitate a patch for the AI behavior, Dave, so
that will be fixed once I get the physics finalized.  

FWIW, the car IS heavier now -- instead of just a 1550 pound car, it's
now about 1950 pounds to account for a 35 gallon fuel load and an
average 165 pound driver.  This is probably more realistic as far as
the weight modeling goes -- you might try to change the gearing for
1st and 2nd gear to see if you can get better acceleration that way.
Regardless, we will adapt the AI to the new physics, so things should
even out.  

Thanks for the feedback!

-- JB